


Somewhere a Clock is Ticking

by Goldy



Category: Firefly
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years down the line, Mal asks a question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere a Clock is Ticking

“Are you happy?”

He reckons it’s about four years too late for that question, but he’s asking all the same. _He’s_ happy. Or near enough to it, anyway, being stuck on a boat with shoddy heat and rusty spare parts and not nearly enough jobs. And he isn’t a stupid man, no matter what the Alliance might believe of him. He knows it’s ‘cause of Inara—knows it’s ‘cause he asked and she stayed.

He’d felt real proud of himself at the time, too. He was laying out all his cards, letting himself be honest with her.

Now he wonders if he’d been nothing but a manipulative _hwoon dahn_.

“Well, I’ve certainly been better,” comes the reply. Her words are muffled and if he cocks his head to the side, he can just barely make out a crop of dark hair peeking out from underneath a blanket as thick as his arm. “Will you pass me the space heater?”

“That’s… that ain’t…” he dutifully picks up the space heater and hands it over. “That’s not what I mean.”

Inara’s head pops up from the mound of blankets. “I know.”

She takes the space heater and disappears again.

He sighs. “Inara.”

“Mal.”

“I’m trying to have a heart-to-heart here. Would help if you gave it some attention.”

“I’m trying to regain the feeling in my fingers,” she says. The blankets shudder and twitch as she moves around underneath them. She switches on the heater and a faint rumble fills the room.

The blankets sigh in relief.

Mal rocks back on his heels, beginning to feel more than a little nippy himself. “You know,” he begins. “There are other… better heated areas of this ship. You don’t got to stay in here.”

Her head pops up again. Her hair hangs in a frizzy mess around her face, gone wild from the static under the blankets. It makes him go all soft inside and he smiles at her, trying to ignore how he suddenly feels like a dopey eyed 16-year-old on his first date.

“I like it in here,” she says. “It’s… comforting.”

He looks around, takes note of the shuttle’s bare walls and empty shelves, and the dust collecting in corners. It’s damn depressing, is what it is. It’s not comforting. Hell, it’s barely even liveable what with Serenity’s latest heating problems.

Inara will spend weeks at a time down in his bunk. Months, sometimes. Never complaining, never asking for them to move somewhere bigger. But she always comes back here in the end, back to her shuttle. Back to her past.

Some part of him wonders if she’s doing this intentionally to punish him.

“Inara.”

He sits down on the edge of the bed, hands going to his knees and fingers nervously bunching the material of his pants.

It hits him then. The bare walls and empty shelves slam into him like Jayne on his way to the Kitty’s Corner on payday.

She gave up everything to be with him. And what did he do? He told her that she was part of the family, that they needed her, that they couldn’t survive without her—not after Book and Wash. So she stayed and she gave it all up—the clients and the Companioning and the trips to the Core and for what? A broken Captain and a ship that barely scrapes by on second-hand fuel and mouldy rations?

He sees her leaving with sudden clarity. One day she’ll have enough of this life and want to go back, want to leave _him_ and this life they’ve built for themselves.

“Inara,” he repeats, and it’s a struggle to keep going, to get the words out, but nothing’s felt this damn important in a long time. “Are you happy?”

She smiles, but it’s not one of her _good_ smile. No, it’s one of her Companion smiles. He knows her well enough to recognize them. They come out when she’s trying to placate him and keep control of the situation.

“Why are you asking?”

“It’s just a question.”

There’s a shrug and then the smile slips. She thinks for a second and then says, “I’m… content.”

 _Content._ It’s not as bad as he feared and not as good as he hoped.

He tells himself that it’s enough, but it feels like a lie. _None of it means a damn thing_. He should never have made her make that choice.

“Mal,” she says, and she looks at him through her lashes—those lashes that still make him feel a mite crazier inside, like his skin is on fire and he can’t get too close. “I wasn’t exactly… happy before either.”

He gives a strained smile and manages, “Fair enough.”

He’s not sure if this makes it any better.

“Still,” Inara continues. “It means something that you asked.”

His eyes seek out hers and his smile widens. “We’ve got a job tomorrow. You in?”

Her cheeks flush with what he’s come to recognize as excitement. “Will it be dangerous?”

“Well, yeah,” he says. “It’s a job.” He shrugs. “You can bring your girly gun. If you want.”

“How kind of you to offer,” she says dryly. She studies him quietly and then quirks an eyebrow. “Are you cold, Captain?”

He almost denies it, and then notices the promising smirk on her face. “Mite bit,” he says. “Especially the toes. They’re a sensitive area.”

He wriggles his eyebrows at her. She rolls her eyes, but lifts the blanket. “Then you’d better get in, shouldn’t you?”

“Really should,” he agrees. “For the sake of my… toes. Can’t Captain without ‘em.”


End file.
